


Tangles

by useyourlove



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-07
Updated: 2011-12-07
Packaged: 2017-10-27 00:56:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/289809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/useyourlove/pseuds/useyourlove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kara and Lee stumble back to Zak's apartment after a long night of drinks and dares.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tangles

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [the-applecart](http://the-applecart.livejournal.com), [Challenge 002](http://the-applecart.livejournal.com/1886.html). [Also posted on LJ at wartytoads](http://wartytoads.livejournal.com/8344.html). Location prompt was "Zak's bed." This is from my pre-mini head!canon or, as we've been calling it, "The Times of Sunshine and Stolen Touches".

"Ow--"

"Hey--"

"That's my foot! Ow, ow."

She laughs so loud he has to shush her. "It's like 4AM. You'll wake up the whole building."

She knocks sideways against him, latching onto his shoulder and staring up into his eyes with a smirk. "Don't care." They stay that way for a moment, a smile trying to claw its way onto his face. He gives in and lets it. He's so drunk he can hardly see straight, but he sees her--clear and bright and laughing.

"Unlock the door," she says--or he thinks she says. She's pointing at the doorknob.

"Right," he jumps, fumbling the keys towards the lock. Wrong key. Another wrong key. She giggles. She hangs herself across his back as if he were a couch, put there entirely for her to rest on. He sags under the weight of her, closing his eyes. Lee can't remember how they've gotten back to Zak's from the bar. It's only a couple blocks away--the three of them had gone there often enough in the past few weeks--but he has only a vague recollection of stumbling back through the streets tonight, alternately carrying Kara and being carried by her. There may have been a piggy-back ride involved. That may be where the giant soggy mud spot on his knee came from.

She nuzzles her nose against his neck, her cropped hair falling against his cheek and he drops the keys to the floor with a loud clatter. She laughs so hard it makes his ear hurt and he bucks his shoulders until she slides off and stands, wobbling, but mostly straight.

"Here," she says, both of them diving for the key ring at the same time. They knock heads and she falls backwards on her ass, smacking her skull against the wall.

" _Ah_ -ow..." but when she looks at him cringing, all she can do is laugh some more.

"Open the frakkin' door, Lee. How hard _is_ it?"

An unfortunately phrased question. He snags the keys and shoves the right one into the lock. The door falls open and he tumbles through, Kara crawling after, each breath still coming out in a long giggly sigh as she comes down off her laughing fit. He shuts the door behind them.

"Where did Zak _go_ anyway?" she finally says, climbing unsteadily to her feet one limb at a time and latching onto his arm. There's a small flight of stairs they need to navigate. They shift their weight back and forth, trying not to fall. They knock something over, but are concentrating too hard on staying upright to care what it is.

"Dunno. Think he went to bail a friend out of jail or something. I don't remember. Some call he got on his comm."

It seems like hours ago that Zak had apologized to them, grabbed his jacket, and run out the front door of the bar. "Just crash at my place, it's cool," he'd said. "I'll be back by morning." And so they'd spent the night seeing who could out-drink the other. Then who could out-dance the other. Then who could out-dare the other. As far as they could tell, they were pretty evenly matched. The night may or may not have culminated in a game of "penis" which Kara (naturally) had won. Lee's face was so red as everyone turned when she shouted "PENIS" at the top of her lungs that he (may or may not have) grabbed her wrist and pulled her cackling into the street.

She stops on a middle stair, wobbling, and sets her feet so that he can hang on to her as he navigates the last few steps to the floor. He grabs her elbows, inching his foot down to the next step. Then another. He slips and she falls backwards with a surprised shriek, then a groan at his weight smashing her before laughing once more. He loves to drink with her, just to hear her laugh. It makes his heart flutter in his chest.

Then again, so does having her pinned beneath him on the stairs.

"Elbow, _elbow_!" she cries. "Ow, frak, Lee, you're stabbing me." He shifts around, removing his elbow from where it's firmly lodged in her gut. She snorts, giving her feet a kick or two to punctuate her newest silent laughing fit. She peters out into exhausted giggly sighs.

She catches his eye and quiets suddenly, face serious, watching him. Her expression softens and she cocks her head sideways. He wants so badly to kiss her right then--kiss her breathless and the consequences be damned--that he blinks hard and clears his throat before he rolls off of her. They sit there beside one another on the stairs for a few silent moments, breathing a lot harder than they should be.

He feels her lean against his back and he tenses, trying to ignore her breasts squeezed flush against him. Her fingers work into the muscles of his shoulders and he tries to not relax against her. He _does_ try. Not that the trying ever counts for anything after the fact. She's warm behind him, rubbing the tension from his shoulders.

"Come on," she says finally. "I'm tired and you're sitting on my leg."

He is sitting on her leg. He stumbles to his feet at the bottom of the stairs, holding out a hand for her. She makes to take it, but he thinks better of it, scooping his hands into her waist and hauling her to the bottom with a squeal. "If you drop me, I will _so_ kick your ass."

"Didn't drop you. I already put you down."

"I'll still kick your ass," she says, knocking more stuff over as she stumbles towards the bedroom. He follows.

Zak has never been one to make his bed. He's left a little rat nest of covers in the center of the mattress for as long as Lee can remember. "Why make it when I'm going to mess it up again tonight?" he always says. Lee doesn't know why he's surprised to find his brother hasn't changed at all. Kara is yanking at her shoes, holding onto the headboard for support as she kicks them off and out of the way. She's starting to peel off her pants when Lee turns to go.

"Where you going?" he hears her say behind him.

"Back home."

"You'll die."

"What?"

"You're so drunk you'll die before you get there. Someone... um..." she's trying so hard to find words that don't want to come. "Someone will run you over."

He turns back around to see her clad in nothing but her panties and an old hand me down t-shirt of Zak's. It had been Lee's once. It's blue and has his favorite character from Dragon Fighters of Kobol on it. He can't remember the guy's name now. Zak had loved it so much that Lee had shared it with his brother for years, even while it swamped the younger boy's frame. Somehow, after Lee outgrew it, it had ended up in Zak's sole possession. Why he still has it is beyond Lee's hammered mind. Seeing it now, here, in this context, on _this_ woman--he feels like someone has flushed his brain down the toilet.

"Stay," she finally says to his flabbergasted face. "Stay. Zak said we could crash."

"All right," he says. She flops gratefully onto the bed, one solid pile of tangled naked limbs that he can't bring himself to look at.

Lee walks to the other side, sitting down carefully and staring at the wall. Somehow--he doesn't know exactly how, but he can feel it--this will not end well at all.

"Are you coming to bed or not?"

 _How_ he wants to say "not." "Not" is the appropriate answer in this situation. "Not" is what he should say. It should be the first thing to pop out of his mouth.

But he turns his head and catches a glimpse of her there, all pale skin and bright heavy eyes with her hair tossed back on the pillow like a spray of moonlight, and so many childhood memories wrapped around her torso.

He lays down beside her, stick straight and trying not to move. She sits up on her elbow and smirks.

He yelps when she reaches out for his belt, her hands working him free of it before he has time to jerk away from her. She tosses it away with a triumphant "ha _ha_!"

"What the frak?"

"Take off your pants."

"What? Kar--"

"You don't sleep in your jeans, do you?"

She has a point. But he'll be damned if he's going to let her strip him here in his brother's bed.

He stands facing the wall, and quickly yanks them off leaving him in his boxers and t-shirt. He lies back down with his back to her and closes his eyes, trying to even his breathing. She's so close he can feel the warmth of her skin. He can smell the heady scent of her--that shampoo, and the soap, and the blistering waves of alcohol--brutally crashing against his nose and threatening to overpower his already impaired mind. _Gods_ he's so tempted to touch her. To pull her to him. _Something_. He wonders, vaguely, if he'll lie here all night torturing himself or if he should just get up now and collapse on the sofa.

He's never held her before. He's wanted to. They'd been out places and she'd say something, or laugh that carefree way and he'd want to just yank her to him and never let her go. Or they'd all be piled on the couch watching pyramid and she'd lean against him, her feet thrown over Zak's lap, and Lee would want to wrap his arm around her and cradle her against his chest. But he never had. He'd sat there, terrified to move for fear that he would be crossing some line. And if her eyes had smiled softer or if her gaze had curiously inquired when he left for the night, he wrote it off. She was teasing him. Testing him. He comforts himself with the delusion that this whole affair is one-sided.

But when she slips her arm around his middle and spoons herself against his back, her legs flush with his and her breath on his neck, he feels some tumultuous part of him ease a little bit. And he heaves a sigh of relief.

He rolls in her arms, lying on his back and letting her nestle her head into his chest with a contented little smile. She's like a cat that's been claiming him from the beginning, finally pleased that he understands that he belongs to her. She sighs a little sigh and closes her eyes to sleep.

He lies there next to her, his snockered brain doing gymnastics in time with the hand that he swirls up and down her arm, until finally his eyes close and he drifts off.

*

"Guys?" Zak tosses his keys down on the table, inspecting the newly made mess of his apartment. "Either you two had wild sex everywhere or I've been robbed!" he calls cheerfully.

Lee blinks awake. He's still wrapped around Kara Thrace, her skin warm under his cheek. She's splayed across the entire bed, face muffled in a pillow. Somehow, his arm has found its way under her shirt and he's pulled her closer to him in the night, their legs tangled together beneath the sheet. That shirt is just as soft as he remembers.

"Woah," Zak says from the bedroom doorway. "Hey." He has a smirk on his face. "Should I be worried?" He's grinning now.

Lee wipes at his face, not wanting to lift his head. He knows it'll start throbbing if he does. The thought of imminent pain is the only thing that keeps him from springing guiltily away from his brother's girlfriend. Which is a good thing because, right now, Zak seems to find the whole thing beyond amusing.

Zak reaches out with his foot and kicks playfully at Kara's leg hanging over the side of the bed. She kicks back and he jumps out of the way. "Frak off."

Lee rolls away from her, finally sitting up and groaning as he does. He wiggles his arm out from under her, flexing his fingers to try and get some feeling back into them. "You get your friend?" His voice is thick.

"Yeah. Had to pick up Toni at the airport. Some snark about breaking up with Cassius and running away from school. I convinced her he wasn't worth dropping out over and took her to see her folks. She's got a flight back to Aerilon tomorrow. I'm kind of afraid for Cassius when she gets back though." He snorts. "Anyway, what are friends for, right?" He leans across from the end of the bed and tussles Kara's hair. She swipes her arm in his direction and he catches it, planting a noisy kiss against her hand. She jerks it away.

Lee vaguely remembers the dark-skinned girl who used to come over and play when they were kids. He had ignored Zak's friends most of the time, snobbishly turning up his nose at their childish antics. "Right," he says. It's too early for Zak's face full of sunshine. When he looks at the clock he does a double-take. It does, indeed, say 1:30.

"Woah."

"You two been asleep all day?"

"Yeah, we got in kind of late."

"Shut the _frak_ up," Kara growls. "Or get out."

Zak hops onto the bed, slapping at Kara's ass and giving her a shake. "Up, Artemis!"

She lashes out in all directions, arms and legs flailing like a sea monster suddenly awakened from the depths. Lee rolls off the edge of the bed to avoid getting hit, and Zak hops back, laughing so hard he can barely breathe.

"Come on," Lee says, crawling a few feet before managing to stumble upright and out the door. "I think you owe me a coffee. A strong, black coffee."

"What for?"

"You left me alone with her."

"I owe _you_ for alone time with _my_ girlfriend?"

"Consider it a babysitting fee."

Zak's eyebrows are raised, but finally his face breaks and he starts to laugh again.

"Did you lose?"

Lee's ears feel like they're on fire.

"Or, no, no, I've seen you two go at it before. You kept going until you were both so fall-down drunk you couldn't walk. Oh, Lords. I should've known. You never can back down from a challenge, can you? And neither can she."

The sunlight from the living room windows assaults Lee's eyes and he tries to shield them.

Zak starts up the coffee maker and just laughs and laughs.


End file.
